


Repose

by ScriveSpinster



Category: Sunless Sea
Genre: Ficlet, Multi, PWP, Parabola, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 10:09:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18636007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScriveSpinster/pseuds/ScriveSpinster
Summary: An interlude behind mirrors, for once without need for fear.





	Repose

The moonlit place on the mirror’s far side is warm and sleepy as a surface summer night, bounded by a fast-flowing river and dotted with fruit trees heavy-laden. Everything here is black and silver, gold and indigo, painted in gradations of illusory light. It looks like paradise, but on the river’s far bank, shadows move in the underbrush, beneath the trees; the Tireless Mechanic watches the way they shift and twine, serpentine, and his hands and mind will not be still.

He’s not alone here, and far from unoccupied. The Satisfied Magician holds him from behind, one arm around his chest, careful with the hook; its steel curve rests cool and smooth against his sternum, holding him pinned in place as the Magician takes his stiffening cock in a practiced grip and strokes. Maybe’s Rival lounges on a bed of moss, watching, holding a half-eaten plum in one hand while the other moves lazily between her parted thighs. She’s different here, he thinks – at home beneath stars that hang too close and burn too bright, utterly unafraid of what the forest hides. Her tattoos are the same, though: the butterfly adorning one cheek, the thin, looping curl of ink wending down from her shoulder, over the shadowed swell of one breast and lower still. 

He tries to focus on that – that, and the silken slide of the Magician’s own cock against his skin, hot and hard between his clenched thighs – but thoughts chase thoughts across his mind, and even as his hips start to move in time with the Magician’s pace, his eyes dart, searching, and his fingers tap against his leg in restless rhythm. No matter. No matter. No need to fear snakes in present company.

Maybe’s Rival finishes the plum, throws the pit aside and rises, her eyes shining in the Parabolan dusk; on the air as she approaches, he smells crushed leaves and musk, something wild. She presses juice-stained fingers to his lips like she’s urging him to keep a secret, and laughs delightedly when he parts his lips to lick them clean. The taste of plums is intense, intoxicating – and are those claws, pricking his skin when she catches his wrist with her other hand? Do those teeth flash too sharp when she smiles?

“You’re safe,” she says. “ _I’m_ with you.”

He is, yes. He knows that. He’s not used to being safe – none of them are, not here and not in waking – but there’s something to be said for having the predators in a place on your side. And a lot to be said for the way she wraps her fingers around his cock, stilling the Magician’s hand, and says, “You’ll let me borrow him, I’m sure?”

The Magician leans forward, his mustache ticking the Mechanic’s ear as he says, “We can share.”

And then the two of them are kissing, flush against him from either side; the Magician releases him to grasp her arse instead, and his cock aches for a moment, pressed against the soft curve of her belly, before she shifts to guide him inside her. That hook stays where it is, the dangerous point of a threat that will never be deployed against him; he needs that anchor, here more than anywhere, in this place of teeming jungles, hungry shadows and distant lights. Maybe’s Rival curls her hand around the nape of his neck with proprietorial fondness, and at last – at last, his eyes close, and he loses himself in the the animal scent of her arousal and the Magician’s hips rocking slow and then faster, more forcefully. His head tips back, and he thrusts without thinking, chasing stillness in motion; he’s aware of their hands on his skin, the Magician kissing the line of his jaw and Maybe’s Rival’s hair tangled round his fingers, the uneven sounds of their mingled breathing. He’s aware of time, though time seems fluid here, and less important than it should be. Then there’s a grunt from behind him, a sudden slick heat as the Magician comes between his thighs, and Maybe’s Rival’s grip tightens on his neck as her cunt clenches around him. She gets a hand in his hair and drags him closer, and even that is enough. Heat floods him. His mind goes blank and his body goes taut, all awareness collapsing to a single, simple urgency, and he comes with the Magician’s welcome weight against his back and Maybe’s Rival’s teeth bared at his throat. He doesn’t think. He doesn’t need to. If he’s certain of anything, in that moment, it’s that there is no danger here.

When he opens his eyes, the moonlit forest is gone, though it seems he can still hear bird-calls and feel the wind from a far place. Then it fades, and he’s in the Magician’s bunk with the two of them tangled around him, the mirror on the wall reflecting only lamplight and ordinary shadows.

Still, that mirror draws his eye, and though he wants to stay, he knows enough of glass and dreams to know he’d better return to his own cabin and his draught of wakefulness, and leave this room to the two of them. He starts to rise, but Maybe’s Rival catches his arm – her fingernails blunt and ordinary here, but her grip is strong and warm – and the Magician lays a hand against his chest, smiling.

“We’ll watch over you,” he says, and tugs the Mechanic down again. “Now. Sleep.”

Tirelessness is a hard habit to break in the absence of laudanum, even here and even now. But he closes his eyes, at least, and settles into the space that the two of them leave for him, and at last, in time, he does.


End file.
